Praiter Yed

Picked up 9492 Tie Fighter for £35.36 at Argos - not a bad price I think.

While we're on the subject of Argos , they currently have 9492 Tie Fighter for £35.36 which is the cheapest I've seen it. Lots of other sets on offer at the moment but the Tie was the only one that stood out for me.

I wish TLG would make a thin piece that could seat a minifig and easily be built into Lego vehicles. It seems that currently the only way to get an accurate looking speeder with a seated figure is to pull the legs of the minifig and that's something I'm just not prepared to do . Rant over. This is a good looking portrayal of Owen Lars' swoop bike and even though the minifig can't really straddle the bike, his position does add an element of speed

I think you can be more than 'moderately pleased' Lobot - it looks really good

I've been considering doing something like this myself lately and found this excellent piece of reference. For the most part I really like what you've done, but the 'neck' area is way too thick. Is there any way you could limit that area to just one plate either side of the droid with a little but of greeble added to the sides?

To celebrate the imminent release of Ridley Scott's (is it or isn't it an Alien prequel?) Prometheus, I decided to make an Ellen Ripley custom as part of my 'Sci-Fi Classics' project. In 1979 I was too young to watch Alien at the cinema, but I remember being fascinated by the posters and knew even then that I had to watch this film. It must have been 4-5 years later when it had it's UK TV premier that I finally got to see it. Needless to say, it scared the sh!t out of me. The pacing was so slow I was convinced that Dallas would kill the Alien when he went into the ventilation system, of course I was wrong. Imo it's a shame that with three poor sequels it would be difficult for someone new to the movie to watch it without already knowing who survives . I hope to do two more Ripley variants (a wip of the space-suit can be seen in my current signature) but for now here she is in her underwear . What could be more scary than being stalked by a killer alien when you're half naked?...

Read on Brickset that Smyths toys in the UK are giving out the shirtless Darth Maul poly-bag with any Lego Star Wars purchase!

I don't think anybody has reported this here yet and it's late news! Spotted an influx of poly-bag shirtless Darth Mauls on UK eBay and decided to check brickset only to find that Smyths started giving these out 3 days ago with any Star Wars Lego purchase!

That makes me feel slightly guilty, I check out brickadger everyday on my phone, but whenever I've gone ahead and placed an order on the computer I've gone direct to amazon . I'll make-sure I use the brickbadger links in future. Not guilty on that count. Back on topic; Was in TK Maxx in Preston yesterday and spotted 7326 Rise of the Sphinx for £29.99, 7306 Golden Staff Guardians £6.99, some brickmaster books (Atlantis & Another? @ £9.99, City & Star Wars @ £12.99) and the one that interested me (I'm a sucker for brown Lego), 8677 Cars Ultimate Build Mater @ £14.99, sadly the missus was with me so buying Lego was out of the question .

I spoke to reseller at The Lego Show in Manchester who reckoned they would be on sale in the UK by August/September. He already had some in stock but wasn't allowed to sell them, he said that as soon as they're officially released anywhere else in the world he will be allowed to sell his stock in the UK. His website is www.toyaddict.co.uk.

I read somewhere that Minifig.cat sell parts that are for Sidan toys so are not strictly 'Lego' customs - that would explain the fit issues - although I think the fit looks good on all of them anyway. And yes, the Exo-force heads work well and your display looks nice too.

Warrington Sainsbury's had 25% marked off some sets including: Super Heroes 6858 Catwoman Catcycle City Chase & 6865 Captain Americas Avenging Cycle @ £8.99 6867 Loki's Cosmic Cube Escape @ £14.99 City 4431 Ambulance, 4432 Garbage Truck & 4434 Dump Truck @ £11.99 Other sets were also listed as 25% off but I can't really remember what they were exactly, some duplo and brick boxes I think. My local Asda have 9558 Ninjago Training set on clearance @ £8.97 Don't know if these are local or national offers. Was tempted by some of these but managed to resist - I must be becoming more sensible in my old age. EDIT: For anybody in the area who may decide to take up these offers - the Sainsbury's ones were not in the toy aisle.

Great pics Solscud007 The old style protocol droids really look p!$$ poor next to the new design and although not as rare as the chrome gold 3PO, TC-14 has got to be the best looking Lego protocol droid to date. I really hope TLG decide to release a chrome gold C-3PO in the new design one day. I've decided to call mine U-3PO. I wonder if these will get a rerelease in new packaging when ANH and/or ESB come out in 3D.

Sadly I don't currently have the budget for a Super Star Destroyer - but I have just ordered one of those dinky little police sets largely because it has two 1x2 cheese slopes in blue, no doubt the rest of the parts will come in handy too. Cheers

I've seen Lego in TK Maxx before but usually just the odd rubbish brick box - might have to check out my local store. I guess the May 4th promo on S@H is no secret but they actually have some reasonable offers this year, particularly on the UCS sets.

I ordered 9495 Y-Wing at £49.99 from S@H and an off topic friends set to bump the price over £50 and qualify for TC-14 I'm finding the offer on 10212 Imperial Shuttle hard to resist (£196.79) but I really cant afford it at the moment

I order my materials from Crafty Computer Paper which do international shipping on most items. I think the items they don't ship are aerosols but as stated in the shipping terms there's an icon that will show up for items that aren't shipped internationally. Inkjet Water-Slide Decal Paper If you sign up to receive their 'crafty newsletter' before ordering I think you're eligible for a 20% discount on your order

So cool! I really like the vaporators but then for some reason I have a minor obsession with them (maybe they always reminded me of Thunderbird 3) - minifig ski-poles also make nice micro vaporators. The details in your Sandcrawler are brilliant, it looks fantastic looming over the homestead in epic micro proportions. But the absolute highlight is the entrance to the homestead - truly ingenious parts usage . I think this is my favourite of your SW micro scenes to date - I do hope you do more.

Congratulations to the winners! And thanks to WhiteFang and all staff involved in hosting the contest

I believe pad printing is the technique used by Lego. Screen printing can also be used for print onto some 3d objects, but both of these involve additional processes ie plate/screen making, actually producing the pads to print from and therefore additional machinery and skills. The majority of cost in printing comes from set-up time rather than materials, that's why the more you order the more the cost per item reduces. With a flat-bed digital printer using solvent based inks you can print direct from your PC and although generally used for large format work some desktop versions are now available. This is the only realistic option for somebody who wants to print custom minifigs at home - the only drawback is the price tag. If you could find a commercial printer with one of these machines who was willing to give it a try the cost would be nowhere near as astronomical as paying for pad/screen printing. But what you would most likely need to do is print multiple figures at the same time, probably build a Lego 'jig' to hold multiple parts and print in one pass. No doubt there would be an additional charge for setting up the artwork. EDIT: Cheapest machine I've seen so far. ADDITIONAL EDIT: Even Cheaper!

Ah, 'Machine Printing', the holy grail of Lego customisers... I believe what you need is a solvent based flat-bed printer... I've previously had a look around the internet and found this, I hadn't seen any made by Roland but I guess that would be this one. As you can see, even though described as 'affordable', costs are very prohibitive. I've just done another quick search and The Print Master Monet also sounds interesting - but no indication of cost (so probably a lot!). With the speed that technology moves at the moment we should cross our fingers and hope that a truly affordable machine comes along in the near future.

Thanks Mutley777 . I've been dying to find out the UK terms for this promo, a £50 spend doesn't seem at all bad

I nipped into the Lego shop in Liverpool a fortnight ago and thought I'd give the BAM a try as I needed loads of parts for a custom minifig project. This was the first time I'd ever looked at the BAM section and I was pleasantly surprised, I managed to get almost everything on my list (3 x Light Flesh 'Patrick' legs, black afro style hair, 2 x brown female braided hair and various coloured torsos which I'll brasso off the print) all for £3.50, massively cheaper than if I'd used BL. I was most pleased about one of the accessories I picked up - although I don't know if I'll ever need it ... complete turkey assembly - which sells for around £5 on BL! I spotted quite a few CMS parts in the mix; wrestler head & legs, witch head and hat, mime head, cheerleader legs, tennis girl torso, rapper legs, tribal hunter hair, pop star torso & legs... that's all I can remember. Liverpool has suddenly become my favourite city for family days out .

I'm a sucker for buying those Storage Bricks by Plast Team whenever I see the price reduced, they're not the greatest storage option but they look great and I'm allowed to leave them in any room of the house . I was just on the lookout to see if any were on offer when I came across this, it says released on 27th April. I think I may have to invest in one of those - would be handy for keeping small parts in - pity it doesn't look compatible with the Plast Team bricks EDIT: Release date moved to 18 May

I'm starting to wonder if you have some kind of 'Being John Malkovich' type doorway into my brain, because with this and your previous MOCs you you seem to be working your way through all the scenes I have imagined building myself (or maybe every AFOLSW dreams of making them?). However, you've built them much better than I could ever hope to, and this new one is no exception. Beautiful Well done I look forward to seeing what you come up with next (although I think I might already know )